From Russia With Hope
by sunny-historian
Summary: Krum's ex leaves Durmstrang for Hogwarts. But will Malfoy recognise her, and will she be able to stay? Pairings to come!
1. I Arrive

Disclaimer: All characters but Nyxa Gorovna (oh yes, and her parents) are creations of the great J.K. Rowling. That's why, if you look closely, you might find that they're better characters. Nyxa isn't intended to bear any resemblance to any living person. Etcetera, etcetera. The plot, such as it is, is my own.

  
  


I smiled shyly at Harry Potter and his two companions as I joined the line of first-years, trying to ignore the little fires of whispering beginning around the immense Hall. It had happened, too, on the platform and on the train when I had known nobody... oh no, I didn't blame them, of course, it was surely unheard of that a girl of fifteen would be new to Hogwarts! But Viktor Krum - and how my heart stung as I thought of my erstwhile boyfriend! - had told me what Dumbledore had told them all at the end of the year before. Any guest in this hall will be welcomed back here at any time. I hadn't been there, but I had wished so much to leave Durmstrang that it seemed little problem. So I had written to Professor Dumbledore and he - much to my surprise - had agreed to allow me to come to Hogwarts School.

  
  


That had left only the problem of my parents. I knew that my mother would support me, she of the deep desire for the England and Light Arts of her birth, but my father...! Once, fifteen years ago, he had been the leader of the Death Eaters in Russia. Now he was secret in his sympathies and hidden in his actions, but no less a friend of Voldemort's for that. Even now, as he had been then, he was most important at Durmstrang, an influential governor and writing much of its curriculum. Now, as Voldemort's power waxed once more, I knew that he would force Professor Karkarov to teach more black things than ever at Durmstrang - and that he would make me learn them. He could not be defied... he was rich, full of ambition and wielding terrible power. He had authority and mastery, for at forty he was still coldly handsome, his hair still burnished black, his eyes icy and bitingly blue, and he struck fear into all. Even me.

  
  


But I had managed it, and now I was here. In Hogwarts at last, safe from Durmstrang, but alone and afraid, awaiting the verdict of the Sorting Hat.

  
  


"Gorovna, Nyxa!" she cried, and I came. Oh, the terror that filled me as I sat on the stool, too short for my years, and put that too-large hat on my head! I just hoped - hoped for luck as it searched my mind.

  
  


Your knowledge and heredity are best suited to Slytherin, said the hat into my head, but I wouldn't take it. I knew about Slytherin. When I had told my mother that I would be leaving for Hogwarts, she had warned me. Slytherin, she had said, was little better than Durmstrang. I'd only just escaped from the Dark Arts - and this Hat was trying to force me back into them? No, I said aloud and blushed scarlet as I realised that it must have been heard, and then again I thought it. No!

  
  


All right, all right, it said snappishly, I heard you without that. But you don't lack bravery, at any rate! That means Gryffindor...

  
  


I felt, rather than heard, the storm of clapping from the east of the hall. My eyes blurring with relief, I followed the sound to its source - one of the four long tables that I'd noticed when I'd come in. I sat down where someone, a girl with long brown hair, made a space for me and looked around. I'd done it. I'd arrived. I'd escaped the Dark Side.

  
  


A/N - oh dear, this does sound a little like Harry's Sorting, doesn't it? But what else could I have done with a Durmstrang-trained gal when I want Harry et al in it as well? Parallels will get less later... I promise... and all right, you'll get your conflict! (Teaser - Nyxa's father knows Lucius Malfoy...)


	2. Draco Malfoy

Disclaimer: Nyxa's mine, all the rest are the inventions of the fertile mind of J. K. Rowling. And all in glorious technicolour...

  
  


The black haired boy across the table from me leaned over. "Hi, Nyxa," he said with a small smile, "Welcome to Hogwarts."

  
  


"Hello," I said shyly, although I felt already very welcome. And even if I hadn't been, I'd hardly have cared now that my dream had come true. Then I looked at him - really looked at him. "Harry Potter?"

  
  


"Oh... yeah, that's me," he said, "and this is Ron -" he indicated the ginger haired boy next to him "- and Hermione," looking at the girl who had moved up for me. I could hardly speak, horribly shy and scared as I was, but I smiled as far as I dared and whispered that I was pleased to meet them. Ron asked my name, and Hermione tutted loudly at him.

  
  


"Ron! Weren't you listening to Professor McGonagall? It's, um, Nyxa Gorovna - is that right? Sorry, but it does sound a little odd. Where does it come from?"

  
  


"Yes, it is a little odd, but you have it correctly. Gorov is not a very common name in Russia, but to us it is not strange. Nyxa is the goddess of night in ancient myth. It was - the choice of my father."

  
  


Ron frowned and seemed about to reply, but then someone else spoke.

  
  


"Nyxa Gorovna," he said softly, "What a pleasant surprise."

  
  


I twisted around to see a pale, blond boy smiling in a very disturbing way. He had the look of someone I'd seen before, but I couldn't think who he was. "You have my name, sir, and I do not know why," I said as politely as I could, "May I ask yours?"

  
  


"Why, Nyxa my dear, how can you not remember? We met three, no, I believe it is four years ago now. We spent a month together, and you ask my name? It is Draco Malfoy."

  
  


Then I did remember and felt a chill hand clasp my heart. That coldest winter when I had been in the first year, he had stayed with us. It had snowed more than usual, and the winds had been strong. I had had to entertain him so often, him - and his father...

  
  


"What a pity it is that you were not Sorted into my House..." Draco began. I set my lips.

  
  


"It is Slytherin of which you speak? Then it is to me no pity. I would not be in Slytherin, Draco!"

  
  


His face changed. "You are insolent, Nyxa, and I do not like it. Perhaps you are right and it is not a pity. I wish that you had been sensible; perhaps then I would not have had to tell my father so."

  
  


He walked away and I looked down at my plate, fighting tears. I had thought to have left all of that behind in Russia, my homeland, and my Siberian school. But to come upon it again, so suddenly in the first flush of my triumph at escape, and for that meeting to be with him...

  
  


"Nyxa? What did he mean, about telling his father?" That was the redheaded boy, Ron, and I leapt like a porpoise. I'd taken little notice of what Malfoy had said, but now that I heard it again I knew just what he would do.

  
  


"My father does not know that I have left for Hogwarts, and it seems that Malfoy has guessed it. He will send news to his father, who will tell mine - and then all will be lost. I was so happy to be here at last, but I knew it could not last. Please, though - I don't want to talk about it. "I shivered at the thought of my father knowing.

  
  


"Then we won't," said Harry Potter. He seemed distracted, but turned to his friend with some show of interest. " Tell me about Percy, then, Ron - is he really getting promoted?"

  
  


Ron grinned and the rest of the feast passed without my having to speak of my home again. Hermione tried to draw me into the conversation, already stiffened by Harry Potter's reticence, but I answered shortly. I was terrified of what Malfoy could, and in his vindictive way might, do.

  
  


A/N Sorry about the way Nyxa talks! Does it come over that she isn't English - or does it just sound stupid? I wanted it to sound as though she's narrating this much later, after some time in England when her English had improved from what it was then... Can someone please review this? I need three reviews - even horrid ones will do, because then I might be able to improve it - before I post the next chapter. Please, I just want to know if anyone's reading it!


	3. Night Falls and Day Begins

A/N Sorry about the six-months or so between posts - I totally forgot about it!!!

  
  


The feast had been splendid, but I had been so worried that I had hardly eaten. When we left the Great Hall Draco looked across me and tried to catch my eye, but I turned in haste to the three fifth-years and began asking frantic questions about the school. Hermione had looked at me oddly, as if to ask what worried me, but I had avoided her gaze. Perhaps it was stupid of me, but I suspected something. What had Viktor said?

"Hermione?" I said as we went up to the girls' tower, "Is it true... you, you are Viktor's girlfriend?"

She shot a sharp glance at me. "Yes. Why, do you know him? Silly question, who doesn't, but do you?"

"Yes. He has been my friend since first year, and then at the beginning of the year before that tournament my dreams, they came true... he took me as his..."

Hermione said nothing and I was gripped with fear. What was she thinking - what was she going to say? Or would she say anything? Oh Morgana, what should I do?

"Hermione, I sorry am, I did not mean..."

Then she turned to me. Her face was angry and her voice was bitter. "It isn't you that should be sorry, Nyxa, it's me. And Viktor more than either of us. Oh, what a little fool I was! He drops you, just like that? I should have known he could not have been free, Viktor Krum single? I should have seen he'd done that, suspected that he'd do it to me. And he said that he'd never felt this way about any other girl..."

"He maybe did not, Hermione! I was only his third, or fourth, and none of those he left for another. I knew it, that he never loved me deeply but he was my friend and I loved him so... He did not love me, he did love you, it is not your fault!"

"But even so, it isn't fair to drop you from so far away. No, I'm finished with him. Don't try to talk me out of it - we're over."

"And you're going to, as you say, drop him from so far away? But that is why you are angry with him!" I marvelled at my bravery, but I couldn't stop saying it.

"I don't know, Nyxa. I don't know..."

And I left it there. We went up to the dormitory, where our trunks had arrived - was it house-elves who had brought them? But could there be house-elves in England? - and went to bed, all without speaking to each other again. The other girls had introduced themselves, Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil, and I had unpacked sketchily, but it had been a long, long day and it was almost no time until I sleepily drew the curtains of my bed.

  
  


The next morning, I awoke as the sun filtered through the thick brocade hangings of my opulent four-poster bed and sat up in alarm. I drew one back and saw the sun high and hot - it was late! It was my first day and I was late! But why had I not heard the bell?

The curtains around Lavender's bed, next to mine, were drawn back. "Oh, g'morning, Nyxa..." she yawned, "isn't it filthy getting up this early?"

"Early?" I cried, "but look at the sun! It is so high that it must be late - what is the time?"

"Not even half past seven. First time for two months I've been awake before nine, and that was bloody early for me, let me tell you! What time do you usually get up?"

"It is earlier that I had thought. In Russia, that is where I lived, nine would be past before the sun was so high, and in D - in my old school we arose before dawn - at five o'clock was the first bell, and then six was breakfast."

"No wonder you left!" cried Parvati Patil, who was awake too and leaving the dormitory in her pyjamas. "That sounds hellish!"

"Getting up at five in the morning... what on earth sort of headmaster did you have? And what did you say the school was?" asked Lavender, curiously. 

I turned pale, I'm sure, and tried to think - but I had no time and no idea of what I could say. And so I was very cold as I admitted "Durmstrang..."

  
  


Thank you very much, NoComment, for your reviews. And I wrote the H/D thing when I was young, naive and inexperienced :) - I blush to admit that the summary wasn't sarcastic, but, well, I don't believe I knew the word 'slash' then!


	4. Potions

A/N And thick and fast they came at last, and more, and more, and more ~ Alice in Wonderland

  
  


We stood shivering before the heavy door of a dungeon. Now I felt at home - Durmstrang had excelled in the dungeon department! I tried to ignore the whispers flying around - Draco had known, I consoled myself, Draco would have told them - but it was horrid to see Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, who had been so pleasant and friendly before I had said that word, stealing terrified peeks at me around the others in their group and whispering - whispering!

"Ignore them," advised Hermione, softening a little after having regarded me icily all morning, "It happened to us all through last year. It isn't that bad."

"A matter of opinion," said Harry Potter, ghosts in his emerald eyes, "Compared to - everything else - it wasn't that bad. Compared to something good, it was pretty awful."

I laughed nervously, not knowing quite what to do. He was about to speak when the dungeon door opened.

I stifled a scream. How often had I been forced to sit on his knee as a child! He had been a constant visitor until I had been seven; my father had told me not to speak of him - he had been a traitor! And here he was, my Uncle Severus, and I hoped to whatever gods there were that he had forgotten me.

"Are you all right?" whispered Ron, "You're white as a sheet!"

I couldn't reply, but it didn't matter. He was speaking in that well-remembered sneer, "Well, are you waiting for Christmas? Get inside!"

I kept my face averted as we went in, but nothing could shield me when we were sitting at the stained wooden benches to listen to him.

"A new student? Who..." he gasped and almost shrieked, "Merlin! Nyxa Vladimirovna..."

I coloured up and shook my head frantically. No, I tried to tell him, I can explain... but he looked at me in dismay. "To which House have you been Sorted?" he asked, and I wondered whether it would reassure him or make him more afraid.

"Gryffindor, Professor Snape, sir."

He appeared to have recovered enough to gibe again, "Another ornament to Potter's House. Perhaps you will be better that him at potion-making. Although it would take very little..."

At last we were told to make a weak truth potion. Harry Potter's pale face grew paler as we worked, as if at something only he could hear, and Ron awkwardly patted his shoulder. I wondered what the matter was - surely he had not been so upset by Severus' insults?

Hermione saw my curious look and whispered, "Truth potions were part of a rather nasty experience Harry had last term. That's partly why he's so quiet now - don't worry, it isn't that he doesn't like you or anything. He was really traumatised all summer, he's still horribly upset about it." She seemed to have forgiven me for what I'd said last night, or at least be ready to forget it. "Er, Nyxa, would it be indiscreet of me to ask how you know Snape - and why he, the worst teacher in the school, is so afraid of you?"

"As I know Draco - he is a friend of my father's. Perhaps he thinks I am spying on him, for my father told me that he is a traitor to Lord Voldemort."

"Don't say the name!" hissed Hermione, her hands to her mouth. "We say 'You-Know-Who' if we must... we are all afraid of him, even his name."

"I am sorry..."

Suddenly I knew that Severus had appeared behind me and again I almost shrieked. "That's far too thick, Potter. I suppose it didn't occur to you to measure your Boomslang venom? And perhaps it would have been the right potion if you had paid attention. As it is, this looks suspiciously like the Mendax solution. Ten points from Gryffindor. Weasley, what have you been doing? Are you colour-blind? This is blue! Didn't I tell you quite plainly that a pinch of bilberry powder would suffice - this wouldn't entice the truth from a chicken. Seventeen points from Gryffindor. Miss Gorova, you seem to have followed instructions so far. Work faster, and you'll need more Mandrake leaf in a moment. See me afterwards..."

He left, and I looked at the others in horror. "That is not fair!"

"Usual style," said Hermione absently, "keep your voice down. Do you want him to come back and take even more points? He hates Gryffindors."

"He hasn't been evil to you, why was he so nice?" asked Harry Potter.

"I believe he thinks I'm a spy. He is a traitor from Lord - You-Know-Who, and before that he knew my father. My father has never turned, and I was always dutiful to him."

The potions bubbled, the dungeon warmed and the lesson ended. I went up to Severus' desk quaking a little, and he looked at me only after all the others had left the room.

"Nyxa Vladimirovna," he said, "I hoped that I would never see you again. What has your father told you about me?"

"He said that you were a traitor, sir," I began, "but I suppose I am also. Certainly I have left home, school and the Dark Arts. My mother knows where I am, but she will never tell him. I am not sent to spy on you!"

"How do I know?" he asked, understandably wary. "How do I know you're not lying?"

"Sir, I... I am no spy. Why - I am in Gryffindor!"

He sighed. "And none could fool the Sorting Hat. I don't know why, Nyxa, but I believe you. I won't give you away."

"Oh, I have done that, sir," I said bitterly. "Draco recognised me. And also this morning I was asked what my old school was. I could say nothing else. But perhaps that is better - I have less, now, about which to feel guilty. Deceit I hate."

"Then it's for the best that you never became a Death Eater," said Severus heavily. "All right, Nyxa, you can go."

  
  


A/N I'm so sorry about her speech, it's very hard to write consistently bad English! Sometimes I try it on a level with my rubbish French, sometimes I do conspicuously correct grammar or muck it up, but I have no idea about Russian word order. Please don't flame me! (Although some help would be greatly appreciated...) And I know Snape's got a bit OOC, but it's all based on his history... I think... help on that welcome too!


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